What You Don't Know
by satanslut
Summary: Angel is just back from Hell and he - and Willow - are discovering that something's not quite the same about him.
1. Not in the Know

Not in the Know

Another night at the Bronze with her friends and Willow's doing her usual seat-warming routine while everyone else dances along with way too much thinking, which you'd assume would be impossible in a place where the music's this loud, but hey, she's Willow and thinky is pretty much her normal state. What is she thinking tonight? She's thinking that she doesn't know what's going on.

Angel's back from Hell. That's good – except for the part where Buffy lied to all of them about it – and she's glad he's not trapped there, with his soul, suffering for crimes he committed without it, because that just doesn't seem fair at all. But he's been… weird.

She doesn't get it. Yeah, okay, maybe he's still going through some kind of post-traumatic stress thing, which makes sense, since, hey, hell, but still… No, he's giving her a wiggins.

Like the other night. Okay, he saved her life from that evil Gwendolyn Post lady, and that was really cool of him and all, but there was something about… Or maybe she's just weird about _him_. That could be it. Maybe deep down she hasn't processed the fact that he's not the same vampire who killed Ms. Calendar – and her fish.

But as much as she tries to tell herself that it's all in her head, she can't quite get herself to completely believe it. He keeps _looking_ at her, and not in the 'these are my eyes and they're wandering and they happened to land on you' way. Not in the 'I'm looking at you because I know you' way either. No, he's been looking at her in this intense, creepy way that makes her think of that night in the hallway when he lost his soul.

It suddenly occurs to her, though, that maybe there's a whole other, equally unsettling explanation for her wiggins – guilt. Because of the Xander-smoochies.

Oh god. She's totally projecting her own evil onto Angel. That's it. That has to be it.

So okay, as soon as she gets the whole inappropriateness out of her thoughts and actions, not only will she be a good person and a good girlfriend again, but – bonus! – she'll see Angel as just Buffy's totally impossible soul mate and the gang's occasional undead ally who barely knows she's alive even though she gave him back his soul. Phew. Because truthfully? That's the way she likes it.

Getting up after finally finishing her soda – and can she just say that it's especially watered down, even by the Bronze's record standards – she heads for the ladies room.

Before she can get there though, she's confronted in the dark hall between the restrooms and the door from the alley. "Willow."

It's him. Angel. He's just gonna ask her where Buffy is, she's sure of it, so she gets there ahead of him. "Buffy's out there dancing. Not with anybody," she hastens to explain, "She's just dancing."

There's this silence for a moment and then Angel asks, "Are you okay?"

Why is he asking her that? "Why are you… don't I seem okay?" Why no, you seem like a big, spazzy dork.

Angel doesn't say that, though. He smiles, sort of, and, because her thoughts no longer make sense where Angel is concerned, she's not happy about it. He takes her arm, pulling her into the darkest corner. Huh? What's going on?

Just when it seems like her paranoia is going to seem totally not paranoid at all, she's saved as someone else enters the hallway. "Hey. I was looking for you."

"Oz!" she cries, almost leaping into his arms. Is he the most wonderful boyfriend in the world or what? Because as of now, he gets her vote. She turns to where her creepy companion was standing, but he's gone.

Good riddance.

"What did Angel want?"

"I don't know," she shrugs. It's true too. She doesn't know.

She doesn't _want_ to know.

Taking Oz's arm, she vows to make him the center of her life and her thoughts from now on. There won't be any room for anyone else. No more Xander-kissage… and no more worrying about Angel.

Xander should be an easy fix. After all, he has Cordelia and, like her, he doesn't want to ruin his life over some weird fluke-thing.

Angel should be even easier, because that's all in her head… right?

She keeps telling herself that as she and Oz head back towards the crowded dance floor, her original mission forgotten and no longer needed. Because dark corners? She really wants to avoid them now.

Of course, it's easy to keep out of them in the Bronze. If only it were that easy to escape the ones in her head.

The End


	2. Unknowing

Unknowing

Another night has fallen and he's still getting used to the way time passes – it wasn't anything like this in Hell. Buffy doesn't get it, that he was there for hundreds of years, not just the few months which seem to have gone by here, but then again, has he really tried to make her see? No, he hasn't.

He's afraid. Since he's been back, all he's wanted is to be exactly who he once was. He isn't there yet, but he pretends as best he can and it seems to at least convince Buffy. That's exactly what he wants… so why is there this nagging dissatisfaction, almost anger, like a shadow threatening to swallow him up? If there's anything that's still true after so much else has been thrown into chaos and confusion by his torment in Hell, it's his love for Buffy and her position as the center of his world. She is the light that chases away the darkness. His feelings for her are unchanged and unchangeable.

But if that's true, then why does he need to remind himself so often? Why doesn't he just take it for granted the way he knows he used to? And why does he find himself thinking of Willow?

Of course it doesn't take him a moment to answer his own questions. After all that time when his very identity had been burned away by endless pain and torment the likes of which he can't find the words to even describe, it stands to reason that the mantle of who he was – _is_ – doesn't wrap around him as naturally as it once did. And as for Willow… well, Buffy herself told him she was the one who gave him back his soul.

He tries not to think about the fact that he hadn't needed her to tell him, to pretend that that isn't even true, just his mind playing tricks on him.

Which it is. It's not as if he's all the way back to normal yet and any number of vagaries can be explained away by that. Such as the other night – the night when he let Buffy fight by herself while he shielded Willow all the while. He did that because Buffy is the Slayer and Willow is a fragile mortal who needed his protection. Perhaps also as a thank you for saving his soul.

And no, he doesn't think about Willow too much, or more than is entirely proper, even if, in the past few days, he's thought about her more than he can recall doing in all the time he knew her before. It's not jealousy he feels as he processes the two scents she bears. He's just concerned, as a friend – which is what he is – about what she's obviously doing.

Not that it matters to him - not really – and if his demon rattles its chains when she's near, it's because she's the one who forged those chains, not that the ache of needs unfulfilled is calling to that dark side of him he knows is only part of him when he doesn't have his soul anyway.

All of this introspection is pointless and he shakes himself, as if to slough it off. Soon he'll be completely back to his old self – his _true_ self – and everything will be all right.

In the meantime, here he is at the Bronze. Buffy is sure to be here and her presence alone will put him back on surer footing. He slips in the back door, but instead of heading into the main part of the club, he stays here in the darkened shadows of the hallway – those shadows that are more comfortable for him than a strobe-lit dance floor will ever be. A moment later, a familiar figure is inches away, but he tells himself that sensing her approach had nothing to do with why he's back here even as he says her name softly. "Willow."

She starts and when she turns to face him, the whites of her eyes shine in the dim light. Immediately, she starts babbling. "Buffy's out there dancing. Not with anybody," she pauses in her breathless ramble, "She's just dancing." Her words make it painfully obvious that she doesn't share any of the heightened connection he's felt, which should reassure him that he's right about it not being real in the first place. Somehow though, standing here next to her, it does something else. Especially since her uncomfortable manner makes it plain she'd rather be talking to anyone but him.

Now would be the perfect time for him to end this – to say something like 'thank you for my soul' and then go back to the relationship he remembers… cordial distance. But instead he asks, "Are you okay?" and he knows as he says that it's calculated to prolong this encounter. What is he doing?

"Why are you… don't I seem okay?" She's almost trembling and he suddenly realizes he was wrong… about everything. That connection – it's real, because she feels it too. Taking her arm, he pulls her further into the darkness.

To talk.

But then… "Hey. I was looking for you."

It's her wolf; her blind, foolish wolf.

Letting her go – not interested in staying to hear whatever untruths she tells one of the two boys who are failing her – Angel slips back out the rear entrance and into the night with the rest of the shadows. He might as well go home – for now. But this isn't over.

He and Willow will be having that talk.

The End.


	3. Ball of Confusion

Ball of Confusion

This can't be happening. She was not just caught in Xander's arms by her boyfriend and Xander's girlfriend while waiting to be slaughtered by an evil vampire and Cordelia is not in the hospital after being impaled.

But she was and Cordelia is and yes, this is happening. Her life is completely destroyed. The worst part of that, though? Worse than losing Oz's love and Xander's friendship and Buffy's respect? The worst part is that it's all her own fault.

Oh god this hurts. It hurts like something is tearing away at her insides with sharp, terrible claws and it won't stop. It just won't stop.

Why? Why did she do this? At the club the other night she was so sure she'd gotten this all straightened out in her head and that this stupid fluke-kissing-thing was never, ever going to happen again. She loves Oz. Oz, Oz, Oz. And Xander loves Cordelia. So how… why… oh god it hurts.

She wants to blame it on Spike – on being kidnapped and scared – but she can't, can she? Because the whole reason she and Xander got kidnapped was because she was so desperate that she was trying to use magic to make this attraction-to-the-wrong-people thing go away. So it really is all her fault and if she wasn't so bad and horrible and evil, everything would be okay – but it isn't, because she is.

Her bedroom floor isn't the most comfortable place for all this anguish, but she figures that mortifying the flesh at least a little is pretty much called for in cases like this, so here she is, in her pajamas, curled up on the carpet, sobbing. She's so caught up in angst, both internal and that caused by the scratchy feel of polyester-blend-fibers against sorrow-heated skin, that it takes her a minute to realize that someone is knocking at the balcony door. Is it Oz? What if it's Oz? What if he wants to talk… or maybe forgive her? Oh god. Oz. Oh no. She's in her ugly, I-hate-myself pajamas and her skin is all blotchy from crying and…

She leaps to her feet, tries to be surreptitious as she wipes her face quickly, and then whips around to see… that it isn't Oz. No, she can't stop her expression from revealing her disappointment as she trudges over to open the door. "Hi, Angel."

If his feelings are hurt, she's… no, she's not sorry. He's the only person in town to whom she _doesn't_ owe an apology and she has a right to not make any unnecessary apologies tonight, thank you very much, because she needs to save all the apology-energy she has for the people before whom she'll be groveling for the next –oh – _million_ years.

There's a hazard to getting too caught up in her own swirling thoughts, though, because before she can stop herself, she says, "Come in," and – hey presto! – the vampire who killed her fish is back in her room. Great. Or then again, maybe it really _is_ great because if he lost his soul, he could kill her and then she wouldn't be so miserable anymore. And hey – at least then there'd be a good reason for him to be here because otherwise she can't think of one.

He's brooding – she can tell – so it doesn't look like she'll get the reprieve of a gory death after all. "I wanted to make sure you're okay."

Okay, that _sounds_ like a reason, but it really isn't one because she and Angel aren't friends. They aren't. And wait a minute… the last time she saw him… at the Bronze… he asked her the same thing. This visit has officially become creepy and she wants to kick herself for inviting him in even as she kicks herself for being way melodramatic.

"I'm fine," she says brightly, putting all she's got into a massively-fraudulent-but-hopefully-successful attempt at a grin.

He's giving her the intense, impenetrable look again, the one she was so sure was just her being wacky and paranoid before, although hey, that could still be true and… she nearly trips over the tangle of her own thoughts and it suddenly occurs to her that getting lost inside your head is maybe not the best idea when there's a vampire in your bedroom. "I really am fine," she reaffirms, "so you can tell Buffy that I'm okay because I am – okay, that is, although I don't know what else you'd have thought I meant." Goody. She's babbling. No way he won't realize she's almost shaking with nerves.

"I'm not here for Buffy." The words are almost spat out and he seems irritated even as she realizes how much she'd hoped he _was_. This needs to make sense. Good, calm, everything-the-way-it-was sense. Because there are other kinds and she doesn't want it to make any of those. "I'm here because I wanted to make sure… you're all right."

There was a pause in there that she doesn't understand and right now she's amending her plea because something is telling her that the sense she's looking for is not to be found so if everything could just stay completely confusing, she'll be just fine with that.

"Well, I am. So you've seen me and I'm fine and… that's it." Yes, she's this close to outright rude and she might as well have said 'here's your hat, what's your hurry', but she's got a lot more crying and self-hatred to get to before she can even think about trying to get any sleep and Angel needs to not be here anymore.

Unfortunately, Angel doesn't take the hint. "You've been crying."

All right. That's it. Because they do not have a personal question kind of relationship, even if she _did_ give him back his soul. "That's not really any of your business," she says, softening the words with her usual 'gee whiz' manner.

There's a flash of what she can't prevent herself from perceiving as anger in his eyes. She doesn't want to know this. She has too much… but maybe it's justice or something for all the terrible things for which she's responsible. Cordelia is probably still in surgery, huh? Anyway, nothing she could ever see in Angel's eyes could be as bad as what she saw in Oz's tonight.

That's the absolute truth, right?

"I'm your friend," Angel says and the expression on his face, the timbre of his voice tell her she might have been wrong. But then again, it could totally be melodrama, and she holds onto that thought.

"No offense, Angel, but there's different kinds of friends. There's the kind of friends who talk about personal stuff, which we aren't, and then there's the kind of friends who fight evil together and _don't_ talk about personal stuff, which is the kind we _are_."

Before she can back away, he invades her space and puts his hand on her shoulder, forcing her to stay put or act like she's running away from him. No, she doesn't want to. She doesn't. It's not like she needs to. That's just ridiculous and goes way past melodramatic and into wacko-cuckoo-paranoid-calling-the-UFO-hotline land. "Why… We could be the other kind of friends. I think right about now you could use one," he says and no, she is so _not_ shuddering at the way his hand feels and the sound of his voice and…

Okay, just hand her a tinfoil hat because yes, she is having a major wiggins. "Thanks. But right now I really just want to be alone." Worried about his reaction, she adds, "Oh but you're being really nice and I appreciate it and all."

"You can talk to me."

It's ludicrous and absurd, but she's actually feeling fear and she knows she's trembling and that he can feel it, because his hand is still on her shoulder. "I need to be alone," she begs, not able to look at him because she can't believe how bizarre this is and she's suddenly remembering that he's Spike's sire and she's flashing back to that bottle at her throat. "Please?"

His hand is under her chin and he… a part of her brain wants to say 'forces', but it's not really like that – it isn't – because he gently tilts her chin up so that her eyes meet his.

You know, Buffy used to talk about how wonderful it was to get lost in his eyes. Willow always thought that was romantic but now she thinks Buffy might actually be crazy, as in needs-serious-professional-help, because there is nothing pleasant about what's lurking in those depths. It's like quicksand in there and she feels utterly helpless. But then Angel says "I'll go" in a low voice and she feels as if she might work herself free after all.

"Thank you," she breathes and the rush of exhilaration she experiences just from the loss of the sensation of his touch is grotesquely disproportionate to the actual event, which, to be frank, is just a guy she barely knows backing away after not actually doing anything major to her. Why then does she feel like she escaped a fate far more frightening than what Spike might have had in store?

It might be because she's an emotional wreck along with being a heartless, two-timing skank. That works as an explanation, especially as Angel slips back out her door and into the night, leaving her alone with memories of _real_ badness – as in all the terrible deeds she's done.

In minutes, she's on her bed, staring at a picture of her and Oz in happier days, clutching the Pez witch he gave her and crying her eyes out.

She's not thinking about Angel's visit at all.

The End.


	4. A Taste of the Apple

A Taste of the Apple

Angel isn't sure what to feel, so many contradictory emotions are roiling around within him. What Spike did… He wants to stake the bastard, send him back to the dust to which he should have banished him the moment Drusilla brought him home with her like some stray dog she wanted for a pet.

But Spike is his blood, and ultimately as much his creation as he is Drusilla's, perhaps more. If he's honest, he knows the answer is 'definitely more'.

Which is part of what is troubling him. Because somewhere in that answer is another answer to another question: Why had Spike chosen Willow? She's hardly the only witch in the world. Surely he could have found one in Brazil, or barring that, somewhere at least far closer to the land to which he'd emigrated, but if it had to be Sunnydale, there are witches here of more experience and practiced skill. After all, other than restoring his soul, what has Willow actually done?

Ah, but that's the rub, isn't it? And perhaps it's what drew Spike to kidnap her – that connection… that connection…

Is that spell the reason Angel can't get her out of his thoughts either?

This isn't happening to him. Since the moment Whistler showed her to him in Los Angeles, Buffy has been all Angel can see. She is the light to his darkness and if her ability to bring him back to humanity was a terrible and deadly illusion, she's still the closest thing to a savior he has.

It doesn't hurt that he's also exactly the type of girl to which he's always been physically attracted, as both human and vampire. She's blonde, reasonably buxom, and free of prudishness in dress or manner; the sort of girl who excites envy on one's arm and excites… other things in private.

But it's so much more than that, because Buffy is also a warrior, fierce and stalwart and tireless as she saves the world over and over again. She is selfless and brave and wholly devoted to her sacred duty, proving that, ironically enough, by sending him to Hell. Buffy is the woman not only of his dreams, but of his destiny.

Which doesn't explain at all why he's at the doors to Willow's bedroom. But then again, it makes perfect, and blameless sense, doesn't it? Because she's been through a lot today – kidnapped by his vicious creation and caught kissing that useless Xander Harris by her milquetoast pseudo-demon of a boyfriend. If she needs anything right now, it's a friend, someone who won't get up on their high horse and shame her, and Angel wants to be that friend.

Looking through her sheer curtains, he sees and hears her curled up on her carpet, weeping bitterly. It's clear she's all alone, not another heartbeat in the house. Coming here was obviously the right decision. He knocks gently.

Obviously caught up in her despair, it takes her a moment or two to realize that someone is here, but then she suddenly leaps to her feet, back still turned to him. He can tell she's wiping her eyes and when she finally rushes to the door, she can't hide the fact that she's disappointed that he's the one standing there. "Hi, Angel." Her voice is dispirited and he tries to tell himself that his feelings aren't hurt, but it's a lie and he knows it.

His invitation into her home was revoked long ago and he stands awkwardly at the threshold wondering how to broach that topic to a girl who is, somewhat insultingly, lost in thought, when out of the blue, she blurts out a desultory 'come in', and so he does.

Being in here… it brings back memories. Not just of the night he killed her fish and strung them like jewels on a necklace, but of visiting her to look for help with Ford… admitting to her that he felt jealousy for the first time in life or unlife because of Buffy. She'd been so sweet and considerate that night and he hadn't even thanked her… hadn't even appreciated what she was offering. They could have been friends. If he hadn't been so foolish…

… but he's going to rectify that now. Because if they're friends, then all of this confusion in his head will shake out and his feelings for Willow will fit and make sense. "I wanted to make sure you're okay," he says, providing the explanation for which she hasn't asked.

She's not on the same page he is, which is clear when her response to his overture of friendship is a patently false grin and a syrupy chirrup of, "I'm fine." Does she really think he'll buy that? Even a stranger could see through it and they're hardly that. He can't stop himself from staring and she just intensifies her efforts, though she's obviously unnerved. "I really am fine, so you can tell Buffy that I'm okay because I am – okay, that is, although I don't know what else you'd have thought I meant."

He can't believe this, though he probably should – she thinks he's here at Buffy's behest. He'd laugh at the shakiness of her logic if he was one for jokes, but Hell had anything but a salutary effect on his sense of humour and he's not in the mood. "I'm not here for Buffy. I'm here because I wanted to make sure…" Just as he's speaking, his eyes light on a picture of her in happier times that's tacked to the wall – a picture of her and Xander – and it tells him something he doesn't want to know about what he wanted to learn by coming here. Clumsily, he manages to finish his sentence the way he'd originally intended. "… you're all right."

The fact that she clearly isn't… he doesn't understand her manner towards him. His memories of Willow are of a girl almost terrifyingly eager for friendship and understanding. At a time like this, abandoned by everyone after an ordeal that had to be terrifying in and of itself? He knows Spike and he knows damn good and well that the version Buffy gave him of what Willow related to her is nowhere near the whole story of her encounter with his evil creation. A part of him is amazed that Spike left the girl as virginal as he found her. His boy must have been far drunker than he'd thought, and that's a blessing. But even with that being true, doesn't Willow need someone to talk to?

Apparently not, or at least she doesn't seem to think so, as she is now outright rude to him. "Well, I am. So you've seen me and I'm fine and… that's it." If he were human, she might be bodily shoving him out the door… and then a flash of memory. She actually did do that the night he came here to ask for her help. Of course, back then he hadn't killed her fish – or her favorite teacher. Now she's far more frightened of him.

It angers him. There's this connection which, as much as he denies it, haunts him constantly, and she doesn't feel it, won't acknowledge it, won't grant him the comfort of transforming it into easy friendship.

His anger, though, it's unfair and he knows it. She's human and, for all that she's dabbled in darkness, she has no idea what goes on in the air that no one can breathe. He'll keep trying, ignoring her obvious attempts to hustle him out of her home, because she really _does_ need consoling. "You've been crying."

She's not giving an inch. "That's not really any of your business." There is, however, a softening of tone which makes him hopeful.

"I'm your friend," he responds and if there's an intensity in his voice that makes the words more commanding and insistent than they should be, it's only there because he desperately wants to repay her for what she's done for him.

Once again, he's thwarted. "No offense, Angel, but there's different kinds of friends. There's the kind of friends who talk about personal stuff, which we aren't, and then there's the kind of friends who fight evil together and _don't_ talk about personal stuff, which is the kind we _are_."

This isn't what he expected at all and he's fighting the urge to chase that running brings out in a natural predator. He's losing. Reaching out, he puts his hand on her shoulder and he's met with the clamminess of fright. "Why…?" He pauses because the question he's about to ask is all wrong, so instead he says, "We could be the other kind of friends. I think right about now you could use one."

There's the sound of a fawn running through the brush as she just keeps shutting him out. "Thanks. But right now I really just want to be alone. Oh but you're being really nice and I appreciate it and all." If that last is meant to take away the sting of rejection – and other emotions he can't name and doesn't want to – well, it isn't working.

He tries yet again. Yes, he's that desperate and he has no intention of allowing the introspection which would tell him why. "You can talk to me."

Those eyes of hers, they're looking everywhere but at him and the fear beneath her skin has transformed and is almost glowing with heat. ""I need to be alone." Her voice is quavering as she adds a plaintive, "Please?"

Putting his hand under her chin, restraining himself into gentleness, he forces her to meet his gaze. His eyes hold hers in their grip but no, that last thought he had wasn't a wish for Drusilla's gift of thrall. He would never wish for that. So he concedes the battle. "I'll go."

Her response is a thank you and a distressing sigh of relief as he breaks contact; he turns and leaves before he can react. All kinds of thoughts swirl through his brain – like the fact that she so freely gives to Xander what she refuses to give to him. Friendship, that's what he means, naturally. He's not thinking of those stolen kisses. He isn't. Because that side of Willow's life… it's not, as she said, that it's none of his business, it's merely that he isn't jealous.

Because as much as he wants to be her friend – and he will be, he hasn't given up on that at all – he loves Buffy even more, so much that no other woman could ever so much as catch his eye.

Now that he's got that straight, he makes his way back to the mansion. There's no sense in worrying about how much securing Willow's friendship has meant to him since he returned from Hell, none at all. She gave him back his soul; he owes her. It's only natural for him to want to repay such an extraordinary debt. Given her current predicament, she'll realize soon enough that his friendship is something both necessary and desirable and they'll be what they should be.

Then his mind will be quiet and everything will be fine. Just fine.

The End.


	5. A Little Knowledge

A Little Knowledge

Oz turned her down.

As in said no to making love to her.

Okay, Willow gets his reasons, and they're good ones, they are, it's just… she's hurt and she's worried and even though he says everything is all right between them – better than all right, even – the fact that he doesn't want to have sex with her isn't exactly the stuff that teenage dreams or healthy senses of self-esteem are made of.

But he spent the night, so that has to mean something, right? Right? Because he slept in her room and they watched the snow fall and they went out into the yard and threw snowballs at each other and kissed and everything. It was a romantic scene straight out of an old movie.

Complete with fadeouts.

She gets that it seems pretty crass of her, but you know what? Just because she's a lot more intelligent than most people her age doesn't mean she _isn't_ her age, and she has the hormones to prove it. Plus, she loves Oz. She really does. Is it so terrible that she'd like to make love with him? To find out what all the fuss is about? Because the way Buffy described…

Yeah, but that went really badly right after, didn't it? Buffy described that, too. Of course, that was more partner-specific than applicable to sex in general, but still… Maybe Oz has a point about waiting and caution and…

No, she doesn't agree with that. What kind of musician is he, anyway? Aren't they supposed to be wild, untamed free spirits, all hedonistic and abandoned and stuff?

It's her. It has to be her. So that means the truth is that maybe Oz loves her, but he doesn't _want_ her, not in a lusty, sexy way.

She looks in the mirror and her spirits plummet, because she sees his point. She's no Buffy, or Cordelia, or Faith. She's just this pale, awkward, gawky girl with small boobs and red hair and lips that aren't all pouty. Why _would_ Oz want her in a lusty way? Heck, now that she thinks about it, Xander didn't either. Sure, he _kissed_ her, but he never tried to go any further.

It's definitely her.

Now her distress is becoming deeper than just frustration and wounded vanity, because she's starting to wonder about herself in general. Is it more than just her appearance? Is Oz's rejection about more than just sex? Did he get back together with her because he wants someone around who compliments his music and isn't demanding, but who he can ditch easily when something better comes along?

Staring at herself in the mirror isn't helping, and neither is looking around at a room that seems to be a shrine to her total social awkwardness. Maybe some fresh air would clear her head and cheer her up, or at least stop her from becoming mopier. Okay, yes, it's nighttime, but she has a purse always stocked with a stake, a cross, and holy water, plus a pretty decent working knowledge of where the demonic hotspots are and how to avoid them, so she can be trusted to take a short stroll on her own.

So that's what she's gonna do. Grabbing that aforementioned purse and a jacket and trying not to think about the fact that it doesn't in any way match the clothes she's wearing – since when does she notice that stuff… and isn't that part of the problem? – she heads downstairs.

It's dark outside, darker than she expected, but she's not going to let that stop her. She really needs to get out of her house.

The street is quiet and nobody else seems to be out, but that's no big surprise since this is a residential neighborhood and even though everyone seems to believe the party line about drug gangs and barbecue forks, most people stay in – the rest are teens who are probably at the Bronze. Plus, it's a weeknight. It's probably totally normal, people staying home on a weeknight, and Sunnydale might be just like everywhere else – at least in that respect. Wonder if she'll ever find out. Or will she always live here?

She walks slowly, not having a destination in mind, well aware that she has nowhere to go. Buffy's off with Angel, she guesses, and Xander… well, she doesn't really know where Xander is. Their friendship has been suffering since the whole 'inappropriate kissing' thing. She misses it so much – was missing it even before, when the stupid stolen kisses got in the way – and if she'd only known how much it would hurt to lose she would never, ever, ever have let that stupid fluke thing happen at all. How come she couldn't have foreseen this? Some witch she is. It's amazing she can even float a pencil.

Or maybe she's not so completely lame, because she can sense… Reaching into her purse, she pulls out her cross, whips around and…

It's Angel, covering his eyes. Oops. Or maybe not. She still sort of has the creeps about that visit he paid her. Plus, isn't he supposed to be with Buffy tonight? Speaking of which, this isn't anywhere near Buffy's house. "What are you doing here?" she asks as she slowly puts her cross away.

He doesn't answer. Instead he asks her, "Where are you going? You shouldn't be out by yourself this late." The way he says it… she's annoyed with him again. Is he still trying to be her friend? Because doing the 'overprotective parent' thing is the wrong way to go about it. She has parents already, very inattentive ones, and she's grown used to their parenting style; anyway, for those rare occasions when she feels the need of parental interest, she has Joyce, who also doesn't do the 'overprotective' thing.

"I have a cross, as you probably know, and I also have holy water and a stake. I can handle a short stroll around my own 'not-very-popular-with-demons' neighborhood," she snaps.

Angel seems to back down in the face of her attitude, at least that's what the slight shift in his expression looks like, and so of course she feels guilty. It's probably nice of him to be concerned, now that she thinks about it. Most people would appreciate someone caring if they live or die, so maybe she should… "I'm sorry," she offers with a shamefaced expression.

"It's okay," he says mildly, and with a slight smile. That should put her at ease, but it doesn't. Maybe deep inside she's still kinda mad about the fish… and Ms. Calendar. She doesn't know, but then she wouldn't if it was subconscious, would she? Her parents' books have told her that much.

"Buffy told me you guys had a date tonight," she says, and while that's not exactly what Buffy said, it's close enough not to be a lie. More importantly, it's a new way of asking the question he has yet to answer: what is he doing here?

His expression shifts again – no, not darkens, can't be that. "We patrolled. But there wasn't anything big out there."

"Oh," she says, shifting her own expression to cheerful, trying to be pleasant, realizing that she hopes that will bring this encounter to an end sooner rather than later. It's not like her perky manner hasn't driven him away before. "That's good, right? No evil bad guys?"

Angel shrugs, seeming to be unsure of that's a good thing or not. Sure. Because that's one of the hard questions – whether or not to be happy that no one was disemboweled by a Ragnash demon tonight. You know, this more than anything might be why they're not friends. Because she's always been a 'glass half full' kind of girl, but him? Not only does he see the glass as half-empty, but it's got holy water in it and a crack in the rim and it left a ring on his mahogany table and… he's just so dour. And yeah, okay – judgmental much? But then again… Yes, he just got back from Hell, so she should maybe cut him some slack but… he was saved from there! And snow! Snow happened right as he was about to kill himself. Buffy told her all about it – which sort of took the bloom off the rose of playing with Oz in the twirling flakes since… but she doesn't need to think about that now. The point is that a lot of good things have been happening to him lately. So shouldn't he feel… liberated and reprieved and really pretty optimistic? Her boyfriend just refused to have sex with her, but she still tries to look…

All right, so she's Henrietta Hypocrite because yes, she's in a dismal mood tonight, but at least she's not inflicting it on him. "I should probably go home," she says.

To her surprise, he takes hold of her arm and says, "Don't go." He doesn't say 'please' but it's somehow there in the tone of his voice.

She should be flattered that he wants her company and glad of a distraction from the misery that drove her from her home; she isn't, though, and she feels guilty again. It's just occurred to her that, hey, she gave the guy back his soul and they probably _should_ be actual friends and not just people who fight evil together. Unfortunately, she just can't make herself want that.

Still, guilt is a very powerful force, so against her own wishes, she hears herself say, "Okay," and now she's stuck, isn't she?

That expression she sees on his face is sort of like a smile and she supposes she should feel glad that she's cheered him up, and maybe she sort of does, but still… The fact is that for reasons she may or may not ever understand, Angel gives her a wiggins and she's not sure how she feels about him.

You know, maybe Angel hasn't cornered the market on existential angst after all. Ugh. This is so not what she needs tonight. It's seems like she'd have been better off staying home. "So," she says, since Angel hasn't said anything and she's starting to feel fidgety, "What was it like? You know, getting to walk around in the daytime and all?"

She's trying to stick to an upbeat topic, but leave it to Angel to react in an unexpected way – well, maybe not unexpected for him. He frowns and looks away. "It wasn't really daylight," he offers, and again – glass half empty much?

"Well no, but… it was daytime. And there was snow!" She warms to the topic, her competitive fire kindled, determined to cheer him up whether he likes it or not. "I mean, I know snow probably isn't a new thing for you, but it's the first time I ever saw it."

Wonder of wonders, Angel is sort of smiling. But he's staring at her too, which makes her really uncomfortable. Has anyone ever told him that intense gazes are really unnerving? "You never saw snow?"

Is he making fun of her? "I live in Sunnydale," she all but snaps, feeling defensive.

"I'm sorry. I guess I just sort of assumed, your family being… but your parents never took you skiing or anything?"

She's startled for a moment and then that wiggins kicks into high gear because she realizes that he's made assumptions about her based on her parents and their high-powered careers in a way no one else has, not even Cordelia Chase. She never realized he knew any of that stuff… or thought about it. "My parents don't take me on trips with them." She tries to sound utterly unaffected, but probably fails.

"I… did you like the snow?" he asks awkwardly.

"It was beautiful." And it was. It really was. Stripped out of its context as part of the Buffy and Angel Show, it was kind of magical in a totally different way. Getting lost in the memory, she gushes, "Oz and I went outside and had a snowball fight and…"

"Oz was there?" Angel's tight, disapproving voice immediately ends the rapture of her recall. He's glowering at her.

She all but stutters as she replies, "Yeah."

"Oz was at your house that early in the morning?"

"Yeah. He spent the night, but…"

"He spent the night at your house? Alone with you?" Is he growling? Oh god. Angel's growling.

"Nothing happened," she replies meekly, cowed by his stern and angry manner. But then it occurs to her once again that he isn't her father. Who the heck does he think he is? She stands straight, squares her shoulders, breaks out her Resolve Face, and lets go. "Anyway, it's none of your business. Buffy spends the night at _your_ house. She told me. So what if my boyfriend spends the night at mine?" Her voice is high and angry and now her stance is hipshot, arms akimbo. She's sort of impressed with herself.

Too bad it doesn't last. His expression softens and he gets that concerned look that makes her feel guilty and, oh gosh, his hand is on her arm again. "I'm just concerned about you. I don't want to see you get hurt."

"I won't be."

"I just… after what happened between the two of you… are you sure he's not pressuring you?"

Huh? It takes her a second to process that and the whole reason she's out on this walk to begin with comes flooding back and it's not making her feel very good. But it does remind her to defend Oz, because… "He's totally not like that. He didn't try anything, just the oppo…" Oh no! She came way too close to oversharing and by the look she can see on Angel's face, she thinks that by 'way too close' she actually means 'all the way there.' Great. This night has just gone from bad to humiliating, except…

Making the mistake of looking into Angel's eyes… she shivers. The pity or shock she expected, that would have been normal? Neither of those things are what she finds. Is she being melodramatic and seeing stuff that isn't there? Yeah, she has to be. Because there's no way that there are glints of gold or hints of something that he so doesn't feel about her. But it doesn't matter. Right now, she no longer fears being rude. "I have to go home, okay? I forgot. I have a paper that's due tomorrow… and it's really important and… bye!" So she turns and actually starts racing – nearly running – back to her house. Maybe he follows; she isn't sure. But she gets there without seeing him and she bounds through her front door and she locks it and she hurries upstairs and closes not just the curtains over her French doors, but the drapes as well.

It feels dark and close and small in here now – but safe. And safe is good.

Safe is very, very good.

The End.


	6. A Dangerous Thing

A Dangerous Thing

He's taken his first walk during the day in centuries, side by side with the only girl he has ever loved. She has poured her heart out to him; lain herself open, vulnerable and fragile, for him to destroy or cosset as he sees fit; has held his hand as they walked through a white, quiet town as if the world existed for them alone. This should have been everything he needed to be whole again.

So why is that he almost wishes the snow had never come, that the sun had blazed and the dust had claimed him and he'd returned to the fires of Hell through doors that even now he is sure still stand open for him – yawning wide with want?

There on Kingman's Bluff, he'd told Buffy the truth – but he hadn't told all of it. He doesn't want to think about all of it. His mind stays focused on the words about why he was brought back and about the danger he could be to Buffy because, though they are painful, they are painful in a way that's familiar and that fits in with who he knows himself to be, the creature he sees in a mirror made of something unlike any glass.

But it wasn't just Buffy who figured in Jenny Calendar's sibilant whispers, now was it? No, try as he might, he can't block out what else he heard… about what he could do once Buffy was drained and cold and the town was defenseless.

He can't block out what Jenny Calendar said about Willow.

Still, he can rationalize it. Bless Buffy for that, with her logic and her reasons and her excuses. He can will himself to believe that none of it is true, merely the insidious machinations of an evil older than time trying to bend him to its will. After all, who would know better than Buffy, who was born to do battle with evil in all its forms?

Yes, he'll just keep telling himself that, even as deep down he knows that while Buffy _fights_ evil, she doesn't understand it one bit. She didn't even pay attention when he told her that it was the man in him who was the weakness they needed to fear, so wedded is she to the idea that souls are some magical talisman against the darkness. Especially _his_ soul.

Can he blame her, however? After all, he's told the same lie to himself numberless times. Yet he has to admit to being annoyed with her, even though it's not the least bit fair of him. It seems to be a pattern though, this expecting too much of a woman who is, when you strip away the Slayer, a teenage girl.

Just a teenage girl.

Introspection and analysis are becoming ever more depressing as they threaten to unravel every thread holding together the world as he knows it. Even now he can feel all the warm, dark lies being too harshly lighted to ever shield him again. Contrary to what he'd believed a few scant moments ago, the rationalizations won't work anymore.

But did you really believe they would, boyo? Comfort is not for the likes o' you.

Then again, this isn't exactly a homey, comforting place, now is it? Has he ever noticed before how gloomy his house is? It's oppressive – dark, dank, cold – and it's also enough of a vampiric cliché to make his mind turn back to that night at the Sunset Club when… He felt the fool that night.

Maybe he had been one, only he'd been a bigger one the night before.

If only tonight's patrol… but no, there were no demons to fight, only his love's hand in his as she acted as if that blanket of snow remained, as if it had made everything clean and white and new… as if it hadn't just been temporary camouflage for the filth and grime of a world waiting only for a blaze of heat to bring it back to sordid life.

Staring into to the fire eternally lit in his hearth isn't helping. He needs to get out of here.

A moment later, he realizes, he's done just that, all but fleeing the ruins Angelus had grandiosely declared a mansion. So now, here he is, on the streets of a town that shows no evidence of having only recently been a winter wonderland.

He sees a dismal metaphor in that – no matter how much good you do, how hard you try, in the end all your best efforts are ephemeral and the world remains what it was before you started: a grim and terrible place. You're nothing but a brief fall of snow kissing ground, fortunate to be even a memory come the next morning.

On the surface, all is quiet, but Angel knows there's no such thing, not really. There is a whole world beneath the surface and evil remains – noisy with hunger. He keeps walking, not sure where he's going, mind more on where he's been than where he's going.

With a start, he realizes that he's somehow wandered to Willow's neighborhood – and she's out here on her own. Hapless prey.

Or perhaps not, because with a quick movement of one hand to her purse, she whirls around and he covers his eyes. She's got a cross.

It seems to take her a moment to realize it's him and for the adrenaline he can scent to abate enough for her to act rationally. Then she puts the cross away. Slowly though and he's not happy about that. "What are you doing here?"

That's a fair question, but there's a better one, because there are so many dangers against which her cross is no proof at all. "Where are you going? You shouldn't be out by yourself this late."

Her expression immediately shrivels in irritation. She's a kitten who thinks she's a lion and she rails against those who know better than she does. "I have a cross, as you probably know, and I also have holy water and a stake. I can handle a short stroll around my own 'not-very-popular-with-demons' neighborhood." He says nothing, though there is, after all, one demon who seems to visit this neighborhood fairly regularly of late. Funny that he doesn't think of Oz, but then again, werewolves are part-timers, aren't they? Nothing like the real thing.

Nothing like him.

He scrambles to rationalize that last thought and the explanation that, of course, all he means is that they are very different creatures, and anyway, what he wants from Willow is friendship seems to work.

It's the truth.

But if he's going to convince her to give him that gift, he can't keep antagonizing her and he assumes a shamefaced posture to ameliorate the damage done by his well-meant but ill-delivered questions.

If there's more than a hint of his demon's subtlety in his actions, he ignores it. Even when she responds with a sincerely apologetic, "Sorry."

He smiles kindly. "It's okay." This is where they should be.

"Buffy told me you guys had a date tonight," she says and he wonders if she's trying to get rid of him or if perhaps this is the kind of friendly banter that signals the shift in their relationship he's been seeking. He tries to see it as the latter.

"We patrolled. But there wasn't anything big out there." No, everything monstrous waits for him when he's alone. The death of the Bringers hasn't brought great relief. Only Buffy could believe that it would. Is that fair of him to feel that way? Probably not, but he does, particularly since he realizes that he's irked that she characterizes his patrolling with her as a date. As if he only engages in this endless fight against evil for the chance to get his hands on her breasts.

Is Liam the man she sees when she looks at him? Worse, is Liam the man she loves?

"Oh." Then Willow's expression shifts to a cheerfulness he knows is patently false. Does she think he knows her so little? Probably. But he lets her continue. "That's good, right? No evil bad guys?"

Her naïveté makes him ache. Somehow it's neither annoying nor pitiable, though it probably should be. Instead, it calls to that part of him which earlier had lamented the futility of the battle in which he's engaged. Because she's what he's trying to protect, isn't she? Suddenly he remembers the sensation of his soul passing through her and he thinks that maybe she's the anchor that tied him here – that brought him back to this harbour.

Was the First lying about _everything_?

He's no true angel, but there's still the sensation of spread wings and a sense of safety, truer than he'd imagined he could feel again.

Just as he experiences this epiphany, his wings threaten to melt away. His introspection seems to have cost him his advantage; Willow's voice breaks through his thoughts. "I should probably go home."

No! Not now, not when this connection he's felt with her since he came back from Hell is about to become something comprehensible and comforting and controllable. Reaching out, he takes her arm. "Don't go," he all but begs, and he can't believe he's just rolled over as if he's that cur of hers, belly pink and white, defenses down.

Maybe it wasn't weakness so much as cunning, however, because he can see her buckle under the weight of his entreaty. "Okay."

As he feels a soft, human smile form, he knows exactly what he is. He should hate himself, and maybe he will later, but right now he feels too close to that sense of order in his world he's been craving like blood to care about the irony of using the very humanity she restored to him as a tool like the demon he is.

Possibly that's because it's working. She's still there.

But of course the topic she brings up for discussion has to be one fraught with angst – and connected to Buffy. "So. What was it like? You know, getting to walk around in the daytime and all?"

Before he can think better of it, he frowns and responds with a curt, "It wasn't really daylight." Great. Just when he was getting it right.

But she doesn't leave. Instead, she seems determined to try and alter his perception of the day. It's… touching. "Well no, but… it was daytime. And there was snow! I mean, I know snow probably isn't a new thing for you, but it's the first time I ever saw it."

That last revelation catches him off guard. First because he thinks it's the first absolutely personal revelation she's ever made to him but second because it doesn't make sense. "You never saw snow?"

Again, he's blundered and hurt her feelings. He can almost see the walls go up and the tentative bond disintegrating. "I live in Sunnydale."

Time to try and rescue this. After all, she has to admit that it's a bit unusual for a young woman like her, who comes from a family of professionals and of no negligible means, not to have traveled. "I'm sorry. I guess I just sort of assumed, your family being… but your parents never took you skiing or anything?"

A short pause, and then she says, "My parents don't take me on trips with them."

He should have kept his damn mouth shut because it's obvious he's hurt her feelings. She looks stricken and a few seconds thought makes him understand why. Of course it pains her to have someone baldly and tactlessly force her to openly acknowledge her family's neglect. How can they live the way they do, all but completely abandoning her, never sharing their world with her? Willow deserves better than that.

It makes him all the more determined to be her friend; he tries to get the conversation back onto comfortable ground. "I… did you like the snow?"

"It was beautiful." As she says it… the snow may have been beautiful, but nowhere near as lovely as her face right now. She's lost in the memory and the look of joyful, innocent reverie which has taken over her features makes him itch for a pencil and paper with which to capture it forever. He can picture her in a pair of her girlish pajamas, standing outside in the snowy dawn, face upturned as flakes fall onto her cheeks, melting against the heat of her wonder and appreciation. It's as if he's right there with her. Somehow the snow seems so much more magical now.

Her next words shatter the dream. "Oz and I went outside and had a snowball fight and…"

It's as if she's thrown their connection back in his face. For a moment it had as if that snowfall had been theirs, but now… he doesn't think about the fact that what he's feeling is… no, that's not it. He's not thinking about this. He's her friend. He has a right to be concerned. "Oz was there?"

His concern seems to have been expressed with a bit more vehemence than he realized. She nearly stutters out her one word reply. "Yeah."

"Oz was at your house that early in the morning?"

"Yeah. He spent the night, but…"

"He spent the night at your house? Alone with you?" It's all he can do to keep his true face from emerging. Only the fact that his senses tell him she's as pure as ever calms the tempest roiling within him. What was she thinking? That cur… he's a wolf _and_ a teenage boy. She has no idea what could have happened to her. How naïve can she be?

"Nothing happened," she responds and it seems his manner has had a suitably chastening effect. But he's reckoned without her reckless spirit because she suddenly changes course completely and rounds on him. Here again is the kitten who sees a lion in her looking glass. "Anyway, it's none of your business. Buffy spends the night at your house. She told me. So what if my boyfriend spends the night at mine?"

He wants to grab her and shake her and remind her that there are vast differences between a cursed vampire and an unfettered mongrel… between a man and a boy. But his demon's cunning asserts itself. She's not the only one who's manner whiplashes into something new. But unlike her, his transforms with intent. He reaches out once more and ever so gently puts his hand on her arm. "I'm just concerned about you," he says with kindly concern, "I don't want to see you get hurt."

Her expression softens slightly, but her voice is still firm and obdurate. "I won't be."

Continuing in the same solicitous vein, his words are spoken haltingly. "I just… after what happened between the two of you… are you sure he's not pressuring you?"

What did he say? Because there's a flash of something like hurt and humiliation in her eyes before she masks it with the practiced skill of someone well used to concealing the effects of slights and insults. He knows her past, remembers the things Buffy told him back when he's ashamed to admit he wasn't even paying conscious attention, and he knows this has to be a deep wound for her to let him see the blood for even a second.

So deep is that wound, in fact, that her tongue stumbles into betrayal. "He's totally not like that. He didn't try anything, just the oppo…" She stops, but not before she's told him everything… and he's reeling.

She tried to seduce that boy. Tried… and failed.

He's so undone by this revelation that when she stammers out a panicked "I have to go home, okay? I forgot. I have a paper that's due tomorrow… and it's really important and… bye," he lets her go without a fight. It takes a moment for him to think clearly enough to follow her home to ensure her safe arrival.

But he does and he watches as she makes a panicked rush through her front door.

What he's learned tonight… On his walk home, however, he's able to sort it out and understand, putting her actions into context beside her ultimately chaste dalliance with Xander Harris.

She's lost and trying to find her place as a woman in a world full of forthright girls like Cordelia Chase… and Buffy. She's not them, though, and she shouldn't try to be. No, she's something rare and precious and she needs to be protected – from herself.

So that's what he'll do.

Because he's her friend.

He spends far too long staring into his hearth as dawn approaches, trying to drown out the mocking laughter that sounds so much like Jenny Calendar… and avoiding sleep. But it comes. When he awakens, he'll tell himself that dreams mean nothing.

Nothing at all.

The End.


	7. Cracked Out of Turn

Cracked Out of Turn

Her mother had wanted to burn her at the stake.

For all that she mirrors Buffy's 'water under the bridge' attitude, the truth is, Willow is still obsessing about being tied up on a pyre and nearly set on fire. Is Buffy's cheerful dismissal of it all as just another wacky instance of life on the Hellmouth a façade too?

Probably not, huh? Because now that it's all over, Joyce loves her daughter again. She does. It's real and sincere and something Buffy can believe in. Because Joyce is Joyce.

She's not Sheila.

That's not something Willow will ever talk about. Like Xander, she passes off her crappy home life as a big joke, no big deal. It doesn't hurt that her parents don't care anything about her life, that they take off for months at a time and never even call while they're gone, that they don't remember her birthday, that two days after her mother tried to kill her and even after she made noise about demanding to meet Oz, Sheila is gone again on another lecture tour and won't be back until… September? That no matter how good her grades are and how hard she tries to be perfect, they have never once said they love her. Because hey, at least they always make sure the bills are paid and that she has enough money for food. That makes it all okay, right?

The same way that it's okay that Xander's parents are always drunk and screaming at him because – hey! – at least they don't hit him.

Willow has never pried beneath the surface of Xander's characterization of his home life and he's never pried beneath the surface of hers, but they know each other's secrets. Someday, she thinks… or maybe never, because no, she isn't going to risk breaking something fragile that might still protect him. His parents, after all, were not part of the mob.

He wasn't bound to a stake with flames licking at his feet.

She thinks that maybe once, long ago, she heard Xander's Mom say she loved him.

It might have been a good idea to go to Oz's Dingoes rehearsal, but she had thought she was going to need to spend 'quality time' with her Mom tonight and she's not ready to talk about coming home to find a terse note and the usual credit cards on the kitchen table instead, not even with the boy she loves, so here she is – alone in her bedroom. Well, there's Amy, but she's not much company, though at least she seems to be enjoying her new Habitrail. No, Willow's not taking another walk. Granted, the odds of her running into Angel again are slim, but she isn't all that eager to talk to him after basically telling him the whole humiliating truth about her failed seduction of Oz.

Why wasn't he there the other night, she wonders, helping to save Buffy? Has she even thought about that before now? Probably not, huh. Still, shouldn't he have been there?

Great. _Now_ she kinda wants to talk to him, if only because the chance to be angry on someone else's behalf – namely Buffy – is sort of seductive. Scratch the 'sort of' and substitute a 'very, very' for strict accuracy.

Maybe she shouldn't have had that thought because as she turns her head, she sees that Angel's right outside her French doors. What is he doing here? Guess there's only one way to find out, so she gets up off the floor where she's been sitting and watching Amy explore her new home and goes to let him in so she can yell at him. Which she does immediately. "How come you weren't there to help Buffy the other night?"

Angel seems nonplussed, since she didn't even say hello or anything, but Willow doesn't care, because he deserves to be chewed out. Buffy's her best friend.

She's not going to think about the fact that a lot of what she's feeling has more to do with her own Angel issues than with any high dudgeon over his failure to aid Buffy in escaping the recent auto da fé.

He wasn't there to help _her_ either.

Not that she expected or even wanted him to be, except that, you know, she did give him back his soul.

Why hasn't he said anything? Why is he just standing there, staring at her? The 'polite girl' side of her kicks in and she belatedly says, "Come in," because maybe he just doesn't want to have this discussion within earshot of her neighbors.

Unlike the previous times he's been here, there's no hesitation before he walks through her doors.

There probably wasn't when he broke in and killed her fish either.

Once he closes the door behind him – and no, she doesn't feel uneasy about that – she asks him again, "Why weren't you there to help save Buffy?"

He's still just staring and she's more than a little freaked out, but then he finally says, "I don't know," which she guesses is kind of an explanation except... he's lying and she knows it. Don't ask her _how_ she knows it, she just does. Maybe Angel has a tell – she saw that once in this movie about con men and a famous psychologist. Her Mom hated it, so Willow dutifully adopted her point of view and only saw it once, but it's stuck with her all the same.

_You want somebody to come along, somebody to possess you, to take you into a new thing._

Why is she remembering that line, that scene, now?

She shakes it off with a physical gesture that she's sure has Angel wondering just how big a dork she can actually be, but who cares? Not like she cares what he thinks.

Or maybe she does… and she's glad to have him think she's a geek.

Since he said something, she's supposed to say something back, so she wracks her brain for the correct best-friend-reply to his lame excuse and says, "You knew about what was going on with MOO, that Buffy's Mom was in charge, right?"

He nods and has at least the small amount of decency to look slightly abashed.

"So, what? You just decided this was one that Buffy could handle on her own?" He's back to being all Taciturn Guy and it gets her worked up – so much so that she ends up saying things way differently than she meant to. "We were tied to stakes! They lit the pyre… I was almost burned to death!" No. Please tell her she hasn't said that. This is supposed to be about Buffy. Especially since it isn't like she had even expected Angel to show up to save _her_. No, it's just that she's still really overwrought and what with her Mom taking off again and not even knowing what city her Dad is in…

But Angel thinks it's all about him and Willow is getting really sick of the way she always seems to bungle everything with him lately. He's got that Understanding Guy look on his face and she just wants him to leave. Yeah. Like that's gonna happen. Angel turns those big brown eyes on her and says, "I'm sorry. I should have been there."

"Buffy could have used…"

He interrupts her, "You needed me there."

No, she really hadn't. She'd had Giles and Cordelia and hey, Oz and Xander had shown up too… eventually. But Buffy… "Buffy loves you," she says, ignoring his remark. "I bet it hurt that you didn't try to save her."

It's as if she slapped him because he starts; eyes wide for the briefest of perceptible moments. She doesn't want to think about the pleasure she derives from this. "She didn't need me," he responds as his eyes narrow.

A moment passes and Willow realizes he means something different than needing his help to save the day and she can't help but shudder in apprehension. What will he say next? She doesn't have to wait long to find out. "Were your parents there?"

Can she slap him? Please? Because if she doesn't want to talk about this with Oz or Buffy or Xander, she sure as heck does not want to talk about this with Angel, but somehow, instead of lying, which is what she fully intended to do when she opened her mouth, she says softly, "My mother."

The look of sympathy on his face… It's exactly what she doesn't want… or maybe it's what she wants too much. Either way, she does her best to make it go away. "It's okay. Really. She doesn't even remember it now."

"But you do."

Okay, could he please get with the program? Why can't he be the way he was before? You know – completely ignorant of the fact that she exists except when he needs her help in something to do with Buffy. Again, she fully intends to lie, but finds herself admitting, "Yeah." Luckily, there's a way to get things back on the Buffy track. "Buffy's Mom helped light the pyres."

Angel shakes his head. "I saw Joyce tonight. She baked cookies for Buffy this afternoon."

"Oh." That's a nice, serviceable monosyllable, right? Yes it is and it's for sure a heck of a lot better than the 'it's not fair' which is reverberating and echoing and screaming in her head. Because if Willow wants cookies, she'll have to walk to the store and buy some.

It's not that she hates Buffy, or even that she's jealous, not really. Because Buffy saves the world on a nightly basis and she absolutely deserves a Mom who loves her, but… Doesn't Willow deserve one too? Or a father? Willow's not greedy, so it doesn't have to be both, but if one of them, just one of them…

She has no idea how it happened, but suddenly she's crying and Angel's arms are around her and she should push him away but she doesn't. Instead, she stays right where she is and soaks the front of Angel's sort of fancy silk shirt.

He's not pushing her away either; he's holding her close, chin on the top of her head, seemingly not mad or freaked out at all. "It's okay," he says, and she guesses that maybe it's true if he's talking about his shirt or the unexpected emotional outburst, but if he's talking about her life… no, so very not.

It takes her a moment to get herself back under control, but once she can finally speak coherently, she pulls back and says, "Thanks," since that's definitely called for. "I'll have your shirt dry-cleaned," she then adds, because that is also very much what good manners require under the circumstances.

"I can pay for my own dry cleaning." He chuckles softly, though, and her worries about having offended him with her offer vanish. Good, now she can get back to freaking out because she's just shared with Angel something she hasn't shared with people to whom she's a whole lot closer. Of course, then he manages to distract her by jabbing at the raw wound he's uncovered. "Your mother's gone, isn't she?"

Willow can't help it; she bursts into tears all over again, barely managing to choke out, "She left today."

A second later, she's being held close once more. Twice in one day – does that make this a habit? It doesn't make much of a difference what it is, because here she remains, crying for all she's worth, crying as if she's never cried before… which is sort of true if you're talking about in front of other people, because she tries very hard not to do that.

He guides her over to the bed and they sit down, which somehow makes this feel a lot more like they're alone in her room and she's weirdly uncomfortable – which is more normal than what's been going on for the past few minutes, so maybe it's better.

Or maybe it just doesn't matter because he's beside her with his arm around her and she's still crying, though less violently. "Oz was supposed to come for dinner next week."

She doesn't know why she told him that and she wishes she hadn't when she feels him stiffen for a moment, but then again, why is _any_ of this happening? "Your mother likes him?"

Willow shakes her head. "No. She hasn't met him. She didn't know about him until two days ago."

"Your mother didn't know about Oz?" Angel's eyes widen in surprise.

You know, it sounds so much worse when someone else says it, so she hastens to shrug it off with a light, unconcerned, "She didn't notice my haircut either."

It doesn't work. "I can't believe she can be so completely unconcerned. What kind of a mother doesn't…"

Okay, this is not a discussion she wants to have with him. "She's always been like that. It's okay. Really." Willow smiles, wide and bright, and if _Angel_ is big on noticing, then he'll notice the big 'Stop' sign that's plastered on her face right now.

But he doesn't. Or maybe he does and he's just a traffic scofflaw. "It's not okay. You deserve much better than that."

She'd thought the same thing a short while ago, but that doesn't mean she's going to admit it. No, she's going to argue. "It's not a big deal. Seriously. I like the fact that my parents leave me alone. It beats having to try to explain demon fighting without winding up in an institution. My Mom's a psychologist."

That last remark elicits a short bark of mirthless laughter but then his expression turns serious and he's staring at her intently. She's unnerved – now _that_ is an official habit when she's around Angel. His words do nothing to change that either. "You don't have to pretend with me." Oh but she does, she really does, except… after crying all over him, should she really be surprised that it's not working? What she said the last time he was in her room, though, that thing about them not being… _this_ kind of friends, she meant it and she doesn't have any idea why it's not staying that way when he didn't have any problem with it before and, honestly, neither did she.

Her head hurts and she's overwhelmed and boy does she feel guilty and Angel's arm is still around her and… "You and Buffy – you'll make things work." If that's not a non sequitur, Willow doesn't know what one is and even she is having a 'huh?' moment. Then she feels Angel's hand against her skin and she thinks maybe thinking is overrated and she doesn't _want_ to know where the heck it came from.

Angel's face is way too close and he's still looking at her and she doesn't want to meet his eyes.

Just then, there's a sound and she could weep again – this time for joy. "Oh! The phone!" She leaps up and all but trips and falls onto the nightstand. "I should answer it." Even Angel can't argue with that, but she doesn't give him time to try, grabbing the receiver and picking it up. Maybe the universe is on her side because the voice at the other end of the line couldn't be more welcome. "Oz, hey! I thought you had rehearsal tonight." Looks like it ended early and what he says next is a gift. "Yeah, in fact… why don't you come over. My Mom's out of town again." She smiles as he agrees and hangs up.

Now all that's left to do is… but no, she won't be saying a polite goodbye to her discomfiting guest, because when she turns back to where he was sitting, Angel is gone.

She should be relieved, so she tells herself she is, even as disquiet and foreboding coil around her bones. She sloughs it off as Hellmouth wackiness and heads for the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. No more tears tonight. Nope. Tonight is all about boyfriend kiss-age and happy thoughts.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, there's a shelf in a closet and she shoves Angel to the very back of it, behind the sporting equipment she never used anyway, and that's where he'll stay. He was just bored because Buffy was hanging out with Faith or something tonight, that's all. That's why he was here acting all strange and concerned. Tomorrow? Tomorrow none of this will have happened. Not one bit of it.

And you know? It's not bad at all that her Mom's gone all the time. Because really, it's much more comfy making with the smoochies in here than in the back of Oz's van.

Now she's smiling. That's the spirit, Willow. Now go get ready. Oz will be here soon. Then you won't think about anything at all for a nice long time.

To be continued…


	8. Confidence Game

Confidence Game

It's getting harder and harder to pretend that he is who he was before.

Buffy was nearly incinerated by a howling mob of townspeople the other night and he wasn't there – hadn't made a move to even try to help figure out what could have suddenly made the unfailingly complacent and unconcerned Sunnydale citizenry so horrified by the death of two children no one knew.

He tries to tell himself that it's because he's been trying to detach. Buffy depends on him too much and it's made her weaker, not stronger, as a Slayer. That is true enough and might even be part of the reason for his inertia, but can it really explain everything? As much as he wants it to, no it doesn't – perhaps because he spent part of this evening with Buffy and the kiss they shared would read in no dictionary as a fond farewell - but his threadbare rationale is all he has because the rest is shrouded in fog, fog he'd characterize as impenetrable were he not just self-aware enough to acknowledge that it's not so much that he _can't_ see into its murky depths as that he doesn't _want_ to.

What he doesn't ask himself is whether it would have made a difference had he known that Willow would be among those slated for persecution and execution by the brainwashed hordes.

Why hadn't that occurred to him anyway?

Of course, all ended well. Giles and – of all people – Cordelia Chase saved the day and Buffy somehow staked the demon and no lasting harm was done… save to a witch named Amy who turned herself into a rat just before the rescue. According to Buffy, Willow has taken the little rodent into her home and is trying to find a spell to undo the transformation.

Memories assail him of his years in the filthy alleys of New York, draining a meager and disgusting sustenance from the bodies of those pestilent little creatures. He shudders at the thought of Willow having one near her. Hopefully she at least keeps it in the garage or something, though knowing her soft heart, he somehow doubts it.

But is the rat-witch really the only one still suffering any lingering trauma from the events of that too-recent day? He shrugs the question off, or tries to. Isn't he being foolish and rather pessimistic in his thinking? Because it's patently obvious after seeing the way Joyce nearly hovered over Buffy tonight that the transformation wrought by the demon hasn't lingered. It has to be the same for all the others. Except…

No, he's wrong. He has to be.

Still, that doesn't stop him from heading back out into the night on his way to the home of a girl who isn't his… who isn't Buffy.

With each step his mind goes back to the kiss in the darkness at the gates of the cemetery before she began her night's work – begging off patrol being his one concession to his professed goal of detachment. That embrace was as passionate as any kiss they've ever shared, perhaps more, and it has left him with a lingering burden of unsatisfied lust and longing which even now makes his body ache and yet… it was hollow even when she was in his arms and the memory of it rings like brass within him. All noise and no music.

He's wrong, of course. This is confusion and guilt and the echoing whispers of the evil wrapped in the skin of a gypsy martyr turning truth into chaos.

Here he is – Willow's house – and he is poised at the French doors to her bedroom. Just as he's about to knock, however, the doors are flung open and she greets him with an angry, "How come you weren't there to help Buffy the other night?"

The fact that he's been asking himself that same question doesn't make it any less disconcerting to have it flung at him full force by Willow, so he stands mute, not entirely sure what to do and completely bereft of a reply. So he waits and he wonders and he realizes that he'd be almost glad if she were angry at him for not being there for _her_.

He wants to matter to her. Still. Because they should be friends.

Yes, that's all it's about, but it's important, so it makes sense that he's obsess… no, not obsessed, but committed, yes, that's it, _committed_ to making it happen. Just as it makes sense that he's glad his senses tell him that she hasn't given herself to that wolf of hers, because as a friend, even one she has yet to acknowledge, he is naturally concerned about her rushing into a physical relationship with someone unworthy. Does she regret her recent folly?

Tonight is not the time to ask her about such things.

He is still standing outside as she stares at him, her expression both intent and oddly distracted. He's curious as to what she's thinking, but there are few subjects about which a gentleman asks a lady when he's standing outside within earshot of her neighbors. It would be easy enough for him to enter her room so they could have this discussion indoors, but if he's going to win her over, good manners are key, so he waits and she finally says, "Come in."

The moment he closes the door behind him, she lights into him again. "Why weren't you there to help save Buffy?"

There's no getting out of this, is there? He tells her the same thing he's been telling himself, which he's reasonably sure translates into honesty. "I don't know,"

It's immediately obvious that she doesn't believe him; he can see the wheels turning behind those eyes of hers. Is that the reason she shakes herself a moment later, as if rousing herself from thought? It must be, because she turns the tables on him with naïve skill. "You knew about what was going on with MOO, that Buffy's Mom was in charge, right?"

Her point is well-taken and he nods his concession, apprehensive as he does.

His fear is as apt as her observation because she's not finished. "So, what? You just decided this was one that Buffy could handle on her own?" He says nothing. What can he say? Nothing that won't sound callous. She's clearly not pleased by his silence and her voice rises with emotion, as does the colour in her cheeks. "We were tied to stakes! They lit the pyre… I was almost burned to death!"

Those last words both chill and paradoxically please him. He _does_ matter to her after all because she's just admitted as much. Well, perhaps not in so many words, but… "I'm sorry. I should have been there." His stare is now as intent as ever hers was and he hopes she can see his sincerity.

Clearly she can, and she seems almost frightened, her eyes dropping away from his as she counters with, "Buffy could have used…"

Shaking his head, he interrupts her. "You needed me there."

Again she ducks the real subject. "Buffy loves you. I bet it hurt that you didn't try to save her." Does she understand what happens when you run from a natural predator? No matter how fast the gazelle flees, sooner or later, the leopard always brings it down.

There's so much Willow doesn't understand about passion, passion of any kind, isn't there? Any anger Buffy felt towards him has long since melted in the heat of her own teenage ardour; it evaporated completely the first time they kissed in the aftermath. Willow has no idea how right she is – Buffy loves him. She'll forgive him for anything, now and forever.

Willow, on the other hand… but she's a student and maybe she'll learn something from this. "She didn't need me." He's forced her to meet his gaze by sheer effort of will – it's her own fault for calling to his nature with her resistance – and he searches her expression for clues. Instinct kicks in and he asks, "Were your parents there?"

The pain he sees makes him almost sorry he asked, but not really, because she needs to understand what they can be to each other, and if forcing her to confide in him makes her see then so be it. He doesn't have Drusilla's gift of thrall, but what he has is enough. Her eyes stay locked on his and she softly admits, "My mother." The tone of her voice tells him far more than those two simple words.

He's not entirely a demon and this confirmation of his vague suspicions that her home life in no way resembles Buffy causes him genuine pangs of empathy. He knows what it's like, after all, to have parents who…

Of course, she quickly tries to pull back her unwitting admission. "It's okay. Really. She doesn't even remember it now." She cloaks her face in the mask of a familiar smile he now sees with a jolt is agonizingly insincere. Her friends –her _other_ friends, he amends – would let her get away with this charade. He's not them.

"But you do."

"Yeah." There's a shine to her eyes now, but she's stubborn and it's almost comical the way she constantly tries to put the girl as whose sidekick she's cast herself back in the spotlight. "Buffy's Mom helped light the pyres."

He understands, but he's not letting her off the hook. "I saw Joyce tonight. She baked cookies for Buffy this afternoon."

"Oh." That's the last poke it takes for the wound to bleed. He watches as her expressive face tells the story of her anguish, her desolation. A moment later and she's sobbing in his arms.

The warmth of her tears soaking his shirt feels… oddly right, as if she's giving him something every bit as intimate as her blood. This is what he's wanted – oh not her sadness, but her confidence, her trust, her secrets. She's sharing herself with him now – at last – and he feels palpable relief at the prospect of all this inner turmoil he's been enduring resolving itself as they form themselves into a comfortable friendship.

"It's okay," he says softly as her tears keep flowing. When she begins to calm herself, he keeps holding her. This is so different from holding Buffy. He doesn't think about how much more this means to him than his heated groping with the girl he's supposed to love more than his own eternal life.

Willow knows nothing of what he's thinking. When her sobs have ceased, she pulls away and looks up at him. "Thanks." Then she says something that has him chuckling. "I'll have your shirt dry-cleaned," She's such a very good, pure girl, isn't she? If only she knew how special she is, how little she needs to follow the example of her worldly friends and classmates.

"I can pay for my own dry cleaning." As much as he enjoys this display of her innate good manners, she's intended this exchange as a way to once again ease out of their newborn closeness and he's not having it. His senses have already told him the answer to this question, but…"Your mother's gone, isn't she?"

In a matter of seconds she's back in his arms, choking out, "She left today," through a fresh bout of tears. He holds her close, murmuring soothingly as he guides her to the bed. She'll be more comfortable if she's seated – that's his rationale. It has nothing to do with the added intimacy of being on her bed. As they sit, he glances at the plastic enclosure from inside which a small rat whose scent he's been doing his best to ignore since his arrival regards the scene playing out before her with sharp, beady eyes.

The wretched creature brings those memories dredged up by merely thinking of her earlier into clearer focus by her presence and he hates her for it. Perhaps the rat sees the danger in him, because she suddenly runs and hides under a pile of shavings in the corner of her home. A bitter smile curls one corner of his mouth. That rat reminds him of when his father realized just what had become of his son.

Oh yes, he understands too well the pain in Willow's heart.

He's pulled out of his reverie when Willow's sobs quiet again and she says, "Oz was supposed to come for dinner next week."

It's a splash of cold water – holy water – but Angel does his best to remain composed as he says, "Your mother likes him?" One more reason to scoff at the woman's idea of motherhood. He almost wishes he'd drained her when he didn't have a soul. Maybe he would have if she'd been around.

Odd that he remembers that all of a sudden.

Maybe it's not odd… but it should be.

Then Willow shakes her head as she answers him. "No. She hasn't met him. She didn't know about him until two days ago."

Now he's upset for a different reason. How can that woman not have known about a boy her daughter has been dating for at least a year? He's more in awe than ever of Willow's purity, maintained as it is in such a neglectful household. No hothouse flower she. "Your mother didn't know about Oz?"

His disgust and disdain must be apparent because again she attempts emotional withdrawal. "She didn't notice my haircut either."

Soon she'll learn the meaning of futility. "I can't believe she can be so completely unconcerned. What kind of a mother doesn't…"

But Willow quickly interrupts him. "She's always been like that. It's okay. Really." There's that smile again, wide and false and almost pathetic. He can't believe she thinks that a friend would let her get away with a statement like that.

He can believe that her other friends _have_.

"It's not okay. You deserve much better than that." Nothing could be more true. Why would any mother not cherish a daughter like this? She's no callow drunkard, destroying the family's reputation and finances. She's bright and caring and good – a volunteer in the fight against evil and a shining beacon of innocence in an amoral world.

Once again, she trots out her threadbare simulacrum of careless acceptance. "It's not a big deal. Seriously. I like the fact that my parents leave me alone. It beats having to try to explain demon fighting without winding up in an institution. My Mom's a psychologist."

That last is absolutely hilarious if you have a taste for irony, but he manages to stifle all but a sharp bark of laughter. Now he knows where her 'by-the-numbers' brand of superficially logical camouflage comes from. She needs to realize that he sees through it… sees her… sees _her_. "You don't have to pretend with me."

Never has he been more certain that she needs him, because the tears she's shared with him are ancient inside; they aren't the tears of the young woman she is today, but the tears of a child. She has so many more.

Yet still she runs. "You and Buffy – you'll make things work."

His own defenses are raw and she couldn't have picked a worse time to draw him into pursuit. His hand is on her cheek and his face is inches from hers.

Then there's the most unwelcome – or is it blessed? – sound. "Oh! The phone!" Willow leaps to her feet as if an electric shock has run through her – as if she's grateful for escape – and nearly trips as she rushes to answer.

Of course Angel knows who it is before she speaks, but he's still angry when he hears her jubilation. "Oz, hey! I thought you had rehearsal tonight." Her next words are sharp slap to his face. "Yeah, in fact… why don't you come over? My Mom's out of town again." She acts as if he isn't there, as if nothing they shared tonight means anything – as if _he_ doesn't mean anything.

Not wanting to stay to experience more humiliating dismissal, he slips out while she's still simpering at her swain.

After everything he did for her tonight, this is how he's treated? Well then, she can have it that way. As much as he'll always be grateful for his soul, he's washing his hands of her as anything but a mere acquaintance. He kicks a rock as he walks, realizing even as he does it that it's a childish gesture but…

That's it, though, isn't it? She's a child and she fears change. It's not that she's dismissing him; he's frightening because he makes her vulnerable. Far safer to her to live in a world where everyone takes it for granted that she needs nothing and no one because that's what she's always known. It's familiar and the pain is something she can handle. But he can overcome that, show her that she doesn't have to bear that pain alone…

Or at all.

No, Angel's not going to abandon her at all. Whether she realizes it – accepts it – or not, she desperately needs a friend.

She needs Angel.

To be continued…


	9. Studied for the Wrong Exam

Studied for the Wrong Exam

High school isn't even over yet, but Willow already feels her world shifting, pieces of it falling away beneath her feet, leaving her dancing for balance as she looks frantically for stable ground.

Buffy being robbed – temporarily, but still – of her power; Giles fired; Amy… Amy playing with her bell toy in the cage Willow struggles to make homey for her.

She feels lost and helpless because she can't fix anything. Not good enough at magic to fix Buffy – or Amy – and the best she can think of for Giles? An angry letter to the Council? Yeah, like that'll fix everything. I am Willow, fear my prodigious email powers!

Her only success at anything lately seems to have been her ability to open a daunting peanut butter jar and that was tempered by Buffy's look of wistful envy when Willow managed what the Slayer couldn't. Which, come to think of it, turned the jar incident into a confirmation of how much she sucks at magic, so… yes, one more in the badness column.

Even her relationship with Oz feels ephemeral as she struggles to find substance in the fog-shrouded climes of a partnership built of very few words, none of which ever seem to be promises. Like his plans for the future – oh wait, he doesn't have any. Which is worrying, because Willow has to admit she's a planner type of gal. College, for instance. Oh, she's still on the fence about exactly which one she'll attend, but she knows she's going. Oz? Yeah, not so much.

Maybe it's a good thing they haven't had sex after all because she's not sure she wants her first time to be with a guy who might not even be her guy in a few months.

But then again, she loves Oz, taciturnity, plan-less-ness and all. That's the one thing she _is_ sure of right now. The problem is more that, even though he took her back after what happened with Xander, and even though he _says_ he loves her, the fact that the 'no sex' thing has really been way more his idea than hers doesn't exactly bolster her confidence in their relationship.

So which is it? Is she glad they haven't had sex or sorry? Probably both, huh. Great, now she's as rootless and undecided as… augh!

Think about something else, Willow.

Of course, maybe that's not such a great idea, because the first person who comes to mind is Buffy, she of the almost-lost Slayer powers and the fired Watcher and… But you know, there is positive spin to all of that, because hey! Even without her powers, Buffy managed to save her Mom. Plus, Giles loves her so much that it cost him his job. Those are good things. Those are _very_ good things.

And hey! Despite the fact that in many ways Buffy's birthday did have its usual 'Death and Dismemberment' theme, there were some bright spots that Buffy had told her about – like the sweet things Angel had said to her and a really romantic birthday gift. She's sort of almost over feeling creepy about Angel now that she knows how well he's treating Buffy. _Sonnets from the Portuguese_ is one of Willow's all-time favorite books of poetry. As much Buffy is less than enthused about it at the moment, she'll love it too once she gives it another chance and the beauty and magic of the words sink in.

_I love thee to the depth and breadth and height/ My soul can reach when feeling out of sight._

How can anyone not find that incredibly moving?

Willow would be crying tears of joy if Oz had given that book to her.

Speaking of Oz, where is he? He was supposed to meet her here for some pre-Bronze smoochies, but here she is, all dressed up, and… no Oz. Has she made a mistake? Was she supposed to meet Oz there?

Just then, the phone rings. She dives for her nightstand and picks up the receiver before it can ring a second time. "Oz? Hey. I've been waiting for… Oh. Okay. Yeah, sure, I understand. That's important. So yeah, go rehearse. I'll just go hang out with Buffy and Xander." She intends to say she loves him, but he hangs up before she can. No, she's not going to read anything into his haste, because hey, the band has the chance to play at some Battle of the Bands next week in San Jose and that's a big deal, so she totally gets both his distraction and the importance of as many rehearsals as can be crammed into six days.

But she can't deny that she's not exactly in the mood to go get her groove on anymore. Still, she's dressed to go dancing - even put on a little extra makeup, though she left off the lipstick in anticipation of kiss-age – and what's the point of staying home and moping? Every time she does that – she tamps down the vaguely anxious feeling she gets at the memory of her last encounter with Angel, because, after all, she's really close to over that – she ends up regretting it.

So she heads for the bathroom to apply some sparkly lip gloss and, with a last check to make sure her hair looks nice and her skirt is straight, she grabs a jacket and her purse and heads off to Sunnydale's main – well, _only_ – teenage hotspot.

She has to admit that, given recent history, she sort of half-expected to run into Angel on the way and she also has to admit that she's sort of happy when she arrives at the door of the club without seeing a trace of him. Not that she doesn't like him or anything, because, after all, he really is being a super good boyfriend to Buffy, it's just…

Okay, maybe she's not as over the whole 'wiggins' as she would like to be.

Inside, it's crowded and noisy, same as usual, the music being loud enough to cover the sound of herds of skittering cockroaches competing for space with the paying customers, but Willow doesn't see Buffy or Xander. Great. Could tonight just please suck just a little less?

No it couldn't, because she's just spotted Cordelia – and what's worse? Cordelia has spotted her right back. Sure, maybe Cordelia sprayed some water on the flames that almost fried her, but that doesn't make them friends, a fact confirmed when she sees her on-again-off-again-now-pretty-much-on-ag

ain arch nemesis whisper something to the boy she's sitting next to as they both laugh… while staring right at her.

There are no good options. She can be brave and hold her head up and Cordelia can mock her continuously for the rest of the night or she can be a coward and leave and… the same thing, plus, she'll hear all about it in school tomorrow.

Nope, no good options.

She heads for the ladies room, splitting the difference. No, she's not paying attention to what's going on in her path because she wants to get away before she can blush or cry or anything else which might be noticed by Cordelia and her sheep. Which is how she winds up barreling right into someone.

"Sorry," she says without looking up. What she wants is for this to be the end of it and to just keep going; and if she'd barreled into some random guy, she'd be doing just that. Of course, she's not that lucky.

"Willow?"

Oh god. It's Angel.

Now she looks up. "Hi." She smiles, not wanting to get into a discussion of her ever-more-awful evening with him. He's already stolen too many of her secrets. Can she just walk past him, say she needs to use the ladies room? The look on his face says it would be pointless. He'll just wait for her. But maybe… "Buffy's not here. I think she's probably still on patrol." Please take the hint and go join her.

But again, this is not the night where things go her way. "I know." He has that weird, enigmatic look on his face that reminds her that there are all kinds of taciturn and his is nothing like the kind practiced by Oz.

She shrugs, smiles again. "I'm gonna go sit and wait for her – and Xander. They're supposed to meet me here." Mentioning Xander – now _that_ should get rid of him.

Naturally, now she feels guilty. Angel looks… well, truthfully she has no idea what his expression means, but what if he's hurt? Yes, he's been acting weird but… you know, he was in Hell – Hell! – and maybe she hasn't been as understanding as she should be. Having recently almost been immolated, she has a sort of glimmer of an idea of the kind of pain he endured, at least if Hell is anything like all the stories. Plus, he's a vampire with a soul, therefore isn't he always gonna be sort of different? So okay, maybe she needs to stop expecting him to act like a normal human being and getting wigged all the time. After all, it's nice that he wants to be her friend… right?

Shoving the misgivings still clamoring for her attention back into the recesses of her brain, she smiles at him again, trying hard to be sincere, and says, "Wanna sit with me while we wait?"

He's got this intense look in his eyes now and she's second-guessing herself – or maybe third-guessing – but she can't seem to look away. "It's loud in here. Why don't we take a walk?"

"But what if they…" It's no use even finishing her observation, reasonable and logical thought it was, because Angel has his hand on her arm and he's guiding her towards the back door. At least she tells herself it's guiding, because it's not like he's dragging her and she could totally break away if she wanted... it's just that when she turns back for a brief moment, Cordelia is glaring daggers at her.

Great.

But that's the reason she lets Angel keep right on guiding her out into the alley. Totally volitional. In no way was it anything like not having a choice.

The air is surprisingly chilly for this time of year and she's really glad she's wearing a jacket, that's for sure. It's quiet, too. How is that she's never noticed before how closely the Bronze holds the noise and revelry within its walls, not letting much escape at all? It's as if the nightclub were sentient, like a demon, feeding on the energy.

Can buildings do that?

She's not inclined to dismiss her odd fancy as too weird to be true. This is Sunnydale, isn't it? Maybe Ampata infected it.

Why is she thinking stuff like this? Angel is staring at her again as he asks a very similar question to what she just asked herself: "What are you thinking about?"

Of course, because she's a total dork, she can't stop herself from blurting out the truth. "I was just wondering if buildings could be kind of like vampires. I mean, it's so quiet out here and so noisy in there and…" Her voice trails off. It sounds so much stupider when she says it than it did in her head.

Angel's not laughing at her, though, or even giving her that soft, bemused, indulgent smile that Oz always does when she shares her wacky thoughts. He looks like he's turning the idea over in his head, like he's taking it seriously. She should find that flattering or at least nice, but she doesn't.

It gives her the creeps.

"Maybe we should go look for Buffy," she suggests. "I'll bet she really wants to tell you again how much she likes her birthday gift." Smooth, Willow.

The response she gets is a rueful chuckle. "I somehow doubt that."

How can Willow not feel badly for him now? Because it's so obvious that Buffy didn't hide her disappointment all that well and it's just as obvious that he's hurt by the fact that she isn't yet on board the Browning train. Willow has to reassure him. "Once she gives it a chance, you know, sits down in her room when it's quiet and she's not worried about slaying and stuff and really reads it, she'll love it. She has to! I mean, what girl wouldn't be thrilled to know that her boyfriend thinks of her with lines like 'I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life.'?"

She loses herself in the beauty of poetry for a moment and when she comes back to Earth, she notices that Angel is staring at her. Oh god! Did she just act like a total geek?

Maybe not. Because if the 'oh-god-what-a-total-loser-you-are' look is the same for vampires as it is for hum… well, Cordelia-types, then that's not the look he's wearing right now, so she's not actually sure what the stare means, but she doesn't like it.

"You read poetry." He doesn't sound like he's asking a question but Willow still feels defensive.

"Yeah. Just because I'm into computers, that doesn't mean I don't care about the humanities – literature, art…"

His hand goes up and she dutifully stops in mid-sentence. "I know. I just meant that you… You don't see many people quoting poetry these days." She thinks one element of the stare might be admiration.

"Oh." Now she feels guilty again even as those tendrils of foreboding sneak out from under the door of the closet in the back of her mind. She really, really hates mixed feelings. Could Buffy and Xander please show up now?

"Where's Oz tonight?" It sounds like an idle question, but… is that the flash of something shrewd in his eyes or is she just being paranoid?

She's taking paranoia for two hundred, Alex, because what kind of ulterior motive could he have for asking a question anyone who knows her would ask? "He's with the Dingoes. They're rehearsing for this big Battle of the Bands that's coming up." That last is said with pride, because what Oz is doing… he could get a record deal. Right? That happens at these Battle things.

"Must be a sudden change of plans," he says and now the hairs on the back of her neck stand up because… "You're dressed up. You usually only dress like this when you're with him or planning to meet him," he explains and now the hairs are stick straight and unbending. That kind of observance is just…

But he _is_ a vampire, so isn't being all observant kind of normal for him? He probably knows just as much stuff about Xander.

He doesn't; she knows he doesn't. Yes, she's back to having an official Angel-wiggins.

"Buffy told me what you said, about when you fell in love with her." Why is it that now, whenever she gets uncomfortable with Angel, she blurts out something about Buffy? She doesn't know – doesn't _want_ to know – but she keeps on blurting. "It was beautiful, you know? And I know it means a lot to her."

She's hoping – really, really hoping – that he'll get the same kind of dreamy, lovestruck expression she'd seen on Buffy's face the last time she'd talked about it, but instead… she wants to blame the difference on gender or species, but… no. Is it because of the curse?

That's it, right? That has to be it.

Finally, though, he says something and for a moment Willow is sure it's exactly what she wants to hear. "I loved her at first sight." There's something, though; something about the emphasis she hears on the past tense. But that's just her wiggins talking, right?

"That's so sweet." She adds a kind smile and hopes that at last she'll get the reaction she's looking for because otherwise she's going to lose the one thing about Angel that's keeping him in her good books.

Instead, he turns on her. "You know, he could have invited you to his rehearsal."

Huh? Where did that come from? Because it's totally off-topic and… it's mean, okay? Very, very mean. "It's rehearsal. They don't like distractions." Even as she says it, though, she acknowledges to herself that he hit a nerve.

He snorts. "If he loved you, he'd want you there."

Okay, now he's done it. "You don't know anything about Oz. Or me." She's angry now and not even stopping to think before she keeps right on ranting at him. "You know, you said you wanted to be my friend, and I was willing to give you a chance, but this… this stuff you're doing? Putting someone down and trying to make them feel bad? If that's what you think friendship is, then Cordelia's inside. Why don't you go in there and be _her_ friend? Because us? We're not friends. In fact, I think from now on, it would be a really good idea if you never spoke to me."

With that, she turns on her heel, prepared to storm off, head held high in righteous indignation, but then…

Angel grabs her arm and holds her fast. As she turns back to face him, his eyes flash gold and she's as terrified of him now as she ever was when he didn't have a soul. "I _am_ your friend." His pleading voice contrasts with his expression in a way that has her brain scrambling to make sense of things. "I just hate to see you being taken advantage of. Can't you understand?"

His eyes… they're darker than she's ever seen and she's getting lost in them. Her brain might be confused, but it knows enough to light up the word 'danger' in big, bright neon letters and she hears herself almost beg, "Let me go, okay?"

While he doesn't say a word, he does let go.

Without giving him a chance to explain – or change his mind – Willow errs on the side of melodramatic caution.

She runs out of the alley as fast as she can. When she gets home, she doesn't think about the fact that if Angel really wanted to, he could have caught up with her at any moment. She's just glad to be in her own room where she can tell herself she was really silly and blew everything up out of proportion. At least that's how she'll see it from now on. Because she absolutely has to believe that.

But she's still not going to talk to Angel anymore.

To be continued…


	10. Answer Key

Answer Key

The harder Angel tries to put his world straight, the more askew it sits. It doesn't make sense, or, perhaps worse, it does and he is desperate not to see.

The strangest part is that he's not nearly as upset about what he's lost as he is about the fact of having lost it.

He makes what is an increasingly perfunctory effort to find his old footing, thinking of Buffy and waiting for the spark to return.

She'd been helpless, well, helpless for a Slayer, anyway. Funny how it seemed sadder and more pathetic than if she had been a normal girl. But he hadn't told her that; no, he'd given her the fairy tale, the love at first sight when he'd seen her in the sunlight, already knowing what she'd soon learn – that the darkness which was her destiny had come for her.

That pretty story had been the truth, after a fashion. He'd loved her then, or thought he had. How can he possibly know for sure now? How could he have known _then_? What had been his basis for comparison?

Sometimes he wonders who he is. Is he Angel, formerly Angelus, even more formerly Liam? Or is he just some random sufferer plucked from the bowels of Hell and given this identity for the amusement of… the Devil, the First Evil, whoever? It might explain a few things, the difference in his feelings for one.

No, it isn't that simple, though he supposes a part of him truly wishes that it was. For the first time in a long time, he misses… no, that's a lie, he misses his reflection every day. Vanity, probably. He remembers a handsome face – the face of an angel, they'd been wont to say. The cliché from which sprang the sobriquet he's held for longer than ever he did his so-called Christian name.

Three names has he and three lives… or is it four? Should he take a new name now, one to suit the creature he's become since Hell opened its mouth and vomited him back upon the Earth?

He wishes he could, but he can't, can he? Not here where no one realizes that centuries in Hell have changed him… no one perhaps save one person, and it's not Buffy.

It's Willow. She sees, he knows that; it's why she's afraid of him. There's a girl who fears the unknown.

She embraces it though, for all that it terrifies her, and he can't help but admire her for that. Never once has he seen her back away from the fight simply because she's mortal and weak and unfit for the fray. Never once has he seen her consider backing down because she doesn't have the extraordinary powers of a Slayer, not even before she'd acquired her skills in magic.

As unfair as it is, he can't help but compare her to Buffy and find the latter wanting. But does that even make sense? Buffy is nothing like Willow. She was carefree and happy with everything a girl could want until she was pressganged into this eternal war and saddled with a sacred duty. She embraced it, fully and completely, but she's never known what it was like to do this work without her enhanced strength and heightened senses. It's only natural that when they were taken away…

That's what's really bothering him, isn't it? The way she reacted to being normal again. No matter how charitable a spin he puts on it, the truth is that she was more concerned about how her loss of Slayer power would affect _his_ feelings for her than what it would mean to the fight against evil.

Though if she was so concerned with his feelings, the least she could have done was put on a decent show of appreciating his gift. He snorts as an image of her face as she looked at that volume of exquisite poetry appears before his mind's eye. Plastic earrings from the mall would have elicited more genuine enthusiasm and appreciation. It occurs to him that she doesn't even truly know the man he was before she ran him through and banished him to a land of infernal torment. Who was it she took into her body that one fateful night? Who was the man whose tryst was bought with Angel's coin?

Solitude is no friend at the moment. He's going to be as deranged as Dru if he keeps up this brooding and introspection. Looking around, he realizes just how oppressive and lugubrious this place really is – right down to the crumbling stone. He needs to leave, to go somewhere, anywhere but here.

He goes upstairs and changes, not for any particular reason save for a desire to treat this outing as something deliberate and not as a flight from his dismal home and even more dismal frame of mind. A slightly dressier shirt and trousers seem to be just the thing, at least to his way of thinking. With some attention first paid to his hair, he's out the door and on his way… where? Because he's in the mood to be surrounded by people and enough noise and chatter to drown out the truth roaring in his head.

So to which of the pathetically few establishments in this town should he hie himself? Willie's? No, it's drab and disreputable and suitable only for the kind of drinking in which he hasn't indulged since the night he met Darla in an alley. That leaves the Bronze… where he's likely to run into Buffy.

Would that be so bad? Maybe if he sees her the rush of borrowed blood to his groin which usually accompanies her scantily-clad dance floor gyrations will convince him anew that she's the love of his unlife – or at least fuel a satisfying bout of self-gratification later.

The Bronze it is then.

He slips in the back door, as is his custom, but he doesn't feel her presence. Still patrolling, he supposes, or maybe she changed her mind and went home after patrol. He highly doubts the latter. Buffy's well past her recent need to bond with her mother. She sloughs things off easily, which makes sense for a Slayer, so how can he criticize her for it? Something inside him does, though; he can't help it.

Loving a Slayer and yet despising the very things in her that make her what she is? It's a conundrum and not a pleasant one, but there it is. Her mother led the townspeople on a crusade which not only nearly got her killed, but came even closer to killing the girl she claims as her best friend, yet now she acts as if it never happened. Would she be as blasé about hundreds of years in Hell? She certainly seems to believe _he_ is. Not a single question and she has offered no comfort since right after his return. The same goes for that even more recent time when he nearly met the sunrise to escape the ghosts of his soulless past.

No longer can he fool himself into believing that getting a hard-on at the sight of Buffy shaking her tits for all and sundry will fix the damage to their relationship wrought by time and torment… and truth.

Maybe he should leave.

Yes, he probably should, but he doesn't. Instead, he stays rooted in place, his eyes sweeping the room. There's Cordelia Chase, whispering to some none-too-bright-looking boy as she laughs pointedly at someone across the dance floor. He follows her line of sight to…

Willow. She's here.

He's about to walk over and approach her when he thinks better of it. After their last encounter, he thinks being so direct would be a mistake. Better to let things happen 'accidentally'. After all, the back door is located near the restrooms. Sooner or later, human biological need will assert itself and she'll head in this direction.

It looks like sooner rather than later, so he slips back into the shadows, waits for her approach and…

Exactly as he'd hoped, she barrels right into him. "Sorry," she says, but her eyes are focused on the ground and it's clear she has no idea who she's hit.

He continues to pretend he had no idea she was here. "Willow?" His tone of surprise is convincing; he'd believe it himself.

Willow certainly does. "Hi." Of course then she immediately defaults to cramming him right back into the box labeled 'Buffy's boyfriend.' She's been doing that more and more of late. "Buffy's not here. I think she's probably still on patrol."

He keeps his expression neutral. It would be wrong to be irritated since he admittedly came here in search of Buffy and the oblivion of uncomplicated lust. What he found instead… "I know," he says calmly, enjoying the confusion he can see in Willow's eyes. There's a certain pleasure in keeping her off balance. His demon warms to the game, or at least he tells himself that it's his demon… and that his demon is some separate entity, divorced from who he _really_ is. He's had enough truth for one night.

"I'm gonna go sit and wait for her – and Xander. They're supposed to meet me here." That last name is a buzzkill. What kind of demon is Oz, he wonders, allowing Willow to consort with the boy who helped make him a cuckold?

She's trying to put him off, he realizes. It's clear their last conversation is still haunting her, unsettling her. Good. It's clear she knows deep down that changes have occurred and will keep occurring and, child that she is, she's resistant. But she's not shoving things back into the old places if he has anything to say about it, which he does. He conjures a look of repressed loneliness and lets it work its magic. She may be frightened, but her soft heart will conquer.

And it does. "Wanna sit with me while we wait?"

The answer to her question? His desire for noise and crowds vanished the moment he caught sight of her. They're not staying in here. "It's loud in here. Why don't we take a walk?"

As he says it, he already has his hand on her arm and is leading her toward the back door, her weak protest swallowed up by his control.

This is the buzz humans look for in cocaine and amphetamines.

Soon enough, they're in the alley and the quiet is a stunning contrast to the din they've left behind. He's let go of her arm and he watches as her face takes on a distracted, thoughtful look. It's… charming and he longs to know what's going on behind those wide, innocent eyes.

There's no harm in asking, is there? "What are you thinking about?"

She looks caught – and embarrassed, as if thinking is an activity of which she should be ashamed. More proof that she needs him; the friends she has now are a pathetic bunch. "I was just wondering if buildings could be kind of like vampires. I mean, it's so quiet out here and so noisy in there and…" Her voice trails off and he can sense the heat rising from her skin as she colours slightly, afraid she's said something foolish.

Her notion isn't foolish at all. In Sunnydale, anything might be possible. Humans give off so much energy, their emotions uncontrolled and wild. Could it seep into walls, creating monsters unknown even to the Watchers? The idea has merit. The mansion… could it too have a malevolent nature all its own? He can believe that given his inability to find a moment's true peace within its confines.

His interest in her conjecture has clearly unnerved her. "Maybe we should go look for Buffy." She's a frightened fawn realizing that she's in the realm of a predator. If only she could see that he's no wolf and his fangs don't itch to rip her apart. Then she adds something that strikes a nerve. "I'll bet she really wants to tell you again how much she likes her birthday gift."

Unable to contain his reaction, he chuckles mirthlessly. "I somehow doubt that." If only she knew how little Buffy cared for the book he'd offered her. She might as well have tossed it into the fire in his hearth for all it meant to her.

Was it then that he'd realized what a sham it had all become?

Willow knows nothing of his thoughts, but she clearly sees his disappointment and she tries to comfort him. "Once she gives it a chance, you know, sits down in her room when it's quiet and she's not worried about slaying and stuff and really reads it, she'll love it. She has to! I mean, what girl wouldn't be thrilled to know that her boyfriend thinks of her with lines like 'I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life.'?"

There are no words for his astonishment. Not only does she know of these masterful sonnets, but she can quote them from memory. Her expression as she recites the word illuminates her and she's lovelier at this moment than ever in all the time he's known her – or perhaps he just sees the fullness of her beauty for the first time.

Inside of him, things are shifting, transforming – or perhaps merely being unearthed as if by some archaeologist – and he's at a loss to say what he should. All he can manage is, "You read poetry."

Obviously, she's misunderstood his meaning, because her hackles rise and she's on the defensive. "Yeah. Just because I'm into computers, that doesn't mean I don't care about the humanities – literature, art…"

He's taken aback that she thinks he's underestimated her and he's not sure how to respond. "I know. I just meant that you… You don't see many people quoting poetry these days."

That, combined with the absolute sincerity and deference of his manner have defused her irritation. "Oh." She's back where she belongs now – in the submissive position.

Time to change the subject to one where he's less vulnerable and also where he can regain his advantage. "Where's Oz tonight?"

For a split second, she seems fragile, but she quickly plasters a cheery expression on her face as she replies, "He's with the Dingoes. They're rehearsing for this big Battle of the Bands that's coming up."

Angel stifles the urge to burst into mocking laughter. Do they really think they can win this so-called battle? They might as well fight a horde of vampires with plastic teaspoons. But no, he's not going to announce his rather dim view of Oz's musical abilities. Instead, he takes in her more-flattering-than-usual attire and the fact that she's wearing makeup and observes, "Must be a sudden change of plans. You're dressed up. You usually only dress like this when you're with him or planning to meet him."

It's obvious that his keen attention to her sartorial habits has unsettled her. He can sense the anxiety vibrating along the edges of her bones.

So of course, she does what she always does when he's backed her into a corner where she might be forced to face reality. "Buffy told me what you said, about when you fell in love with her. It was beautiful, you know? And I know it means a lot to her." Yes, she's thrown Buffy back at his head again. Keep trying, little girl. Sooner or later, you'll realize that the boundaries have shifted and the rules have changed and the one true friend you have is standing before you.

He pauses for a moment as he debates whether to let her think she's won this skirmish. He decides that would be a good tactic, for all that it galls him to allow anyone to think they've won the day. That old cliché about losing the battle to win the war is, after all, only a cliché because it always works. He looks at Willow and gives in. "I loved her at first sight." That is the truth, or the truth as he once believed with all his unbeating heart, and that's good enough.

Willow however, takes it for far more than it's worth. "That's so sweet." The smile on her face… is it relief? Or is that just his fancy? Either way, she's too comfortable now and he's undone some of the work he believes he'd finally accomplished.

Time to apply pressure again. "You know, he could have invited you to his rehearsal." She needs to realize that the world she considers so safe and comfortable is an illusion. What he's saying now? _That_ is truth.

Naturally, she continues to fight, but she's wavering slightly as she responds with a very weak justification for her swain's thoughtlessness. "It's rehearsal. They don't like distractions."

Really? Is that his excuse? It seems a paltry one to Angel and he says as much. "If he loved you, he'd want you there."

He'd meant to provoke sadness and a willingness at last to admit she needs his friendship. What he's done, however, is damage his cause immeasurably. Willow rounds on him with a fury that would have cowed the Master. "You don't know anything about Oz. Or me. You know, you said you wanted to be my friend, and I was willing to give you a chance, but this… this stuff you're doing? Putting someone down and trying to make them feel bad? If that's what you think friendship is, then Cordelia's inside. Why don't you go in there and be _her_ friend? Because us? We're not friends. In fact, I think from now on, it would be a really good idea if you never spoke to me."

Shit! She's turned on her heel and is about to storm off. She has the gall to turn her back on him. He can feel the ridges of his true face struggle to emerge. While he can stop it from happening, he can't stop his fury at being hectored for trying to make her see reason from colouring his expression as he grabs her arm and forces her to turn to face him once more. All he can do to ameliorate it is to keep his tone of voice conciliatory. "I _am_ your friend. I just hate to see you being taken advantage of. Can't you understand?"

For a moment, a fleeting moment, he feels her get lost in his eyes… and feels another truth bloom from the soil inside as desire takes hold. It takes every bit of self-control he has not to shove her up against the alley wall and punish her lips for the tirade they unleashed by possessing them with all the ferocity of a demon – a real demon, not that mongrel whose paw she holds… to push up her skirt and take her in a way that will teach that same pathetic cur how to mark its property… to teach her what her place is for once and for all – on her knees, her back, wherever he would have her.

Only the terror of what that would mean, of the rain of death and destruction that would follow, makes him let go when she all but begs, and keeps him from waiting to follow her until they both feel the emptiness of his not being near her.

She makes it home safely; he allows himself to see that much.

Angel, on the other hand? That's a different story.

To be continued…


End file.
